Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Millie, first meeting of 2026. Millie, she's never used the tech before. Wow. Did you feel that bus? All right, I call the meeting to order. Um, we will begin with a pledge of allegiance led by Andy Stats. Please join us. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible and justice for all. I can't talk that fast Andy. Thank you.

You were in the army. I was not in the army.

Okay. Um well start the meeting of the planning and zoning commission. and we are um in room 208 on 47 South Main Street. We appreciate um the commissioners that have joined us. Thank you, Mr. Dao, for joining us online. Uh we'll begin with approval of the minutes from our December work our December meeting. Is there any questions or comments on that before we vote on that? Um, seeing none, I will entertain a motion. Motion to approve. Second.

We have a motion to approve the ME meeting minutes from December 3rd, 2025 by Commissioner Beexterm. Commissioner Commissioner Stats has approved them. All in favor say I. I. I.

Okay. Thank you. We will now turn the time over to stats for um our first item of business which is an extension for 2025-141. Oh, nice.

Okay. Hello, this is Millie with planning staff. Um, so just one short item for tonight. Um, we have the uh subdivision extension uh 2025-141. So, it's with Richmond Homes, sorry, Richmond American Homes of Utah Incorporated. They're requesting a six-month extension for water installation and rideway improvements of Wild Horse Ranch subdivision uh phase 15. Um so this is where that subdivision is located just um north of uh the old mill PUD phase 2 subdivision and it's just surrounded by zoning that's a 20 agricultural 20 acre minimum. Um you see some RM7 uh manufacturing distribution. Um we've got some commercial neighborhood um R110 R18 and a little CS there as you can see in the little picture. Um and so uh they have provided substantial progress uh through scheduled inspections and this is just one of the photographic um evidence that they've provided for us. And so planning staff recommends that the Tilla City uh planning commission makes motion uh to grant the extension for Wild Horse Ranch phase 15 um with the conditions of um if the infrastructure is not complete and approved by July 7th, 2026. The developer shall apply for these phases again from preliminary plat through the updated subdivision code. If the infrastructure is approved uh before uh same date July 7, 2026, the developer shall record the phase uh phase 15 within 30 days from the date of approval that was given or the phases shall be applied again from preliminary plat through the updated subdivision code. And the third condition is that no refunds are given for previous

applications and inspections. Um and that is that is everything. You have any questions? Thanks Millie. Any questions for Millie at this time? All right. Um, is the applicant here or are they online? No. Okay. Um, at this time I open public hearing. Oh, do we have No, we don't need a public hearing. Okay. Like it's not on here. But um just

I know. Um just for clarification I mean they've had this is what their 14 their 15th ext or 15th phase right? Yes. And so we've done extensions for them before. They've never had an issue making their deadlines.

We've had So the extensions I believe were for 13 12 and 11 10. Yeah. So those were granted and those are finished. But now we're looking to extend the other ones because those are kind of backtracked. Now these ones are kind of backtracked. So yeah, Donna will fix. So that that's why they're just asking for this one for phase 15. Phase 15 hasn't received any extensions at all. This is the first.

That's I mean I did post that question because I know you only get one extension. So um just so we're clear that there not an issue with that. Any other questions? Do we have um a motion? I guess I could do a motion. Motion to approve sub extension 2025 141. Is that the end of the verbiage?

Well, yeah. Do you want to include staff planning staff recommendations? That is down on page um eight of the information of the packet provided. If you would like to include that, will you just read that? I would read that paragraph below. Planning staff recommends that the to planning commission makes a motion to add the extension for wealth ranch phase 15 with conditions. What? We need to read through all those. Yes, please. Okay. With into the mic. Yeah.

Number one, if the infrastructure is not complete and approved by July 7, 2025, the developer shall apply these phases again from preliminary plat through the updated subdivision code. Number two, if the infrastructure is approved before 7725 26. Oh, there. Mine says 25. I'm not paying still till the developer shall record the phase 15 within 30 days from the date the approval was given or the phase shall be applied again from Glenray Plat through the updated subdivision code. Number three, no refunds given for previous applications and inspections. Okay, we have a motion. Do I have a second?

I would second. We have a motion by Commissioner Beckrom to approve the um extension with um the planning staff recommendations as outlined in our packet. We have a second by Commissioner Stats. We will do a roll call vote on this. Commissioner Dao, how do you vote? Commissioner Beckmrom, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Stz, how do you vote? Yes. And Commissioner Scott votes yes. So, we have approved the applicants extension. Okay. The next is a general plan update.

This is Katie Jacobson with Hansen Allen and Loose. Is that still the name? like it was years ago when I worked with them. Um, they have been hired to complete our water element for our general plan. She's going to present the draft to you tonight. We are asking that this receive a recommendation to the council for adoption. So, we'll we'll be voting on this tonight. Correct. No public hearing. This is just us. Is that correct for a recommendation? No, you're right. This is just a presentation. Right. Correct.

She put it. Huh? It It's not shown this. Did you advertise it as a public hearing? It's not on the agenda. It's not on our agenda. That's why Oh, it is. I apologize. Okay. I know we want a recommendation, but you're five general plan update A. It's under there. So, thank you. You're used to it being in the heading. I am used to it being in the heading. Sorry, Katie. I apologize.

The time is now yours. Okay, great. Thanks. Uh, so over the last five years, the Utah State Legislature has become pretty water focused. That was already happening, but declining lake levels uh in the Great Salt Lake kind of encouraged that a little bit. Uh a couple years ago they passed two bills that require all counties and some cities to put together this water use and preservation element of the general plan. It's a planning it's a planning document not permitting not an ordinance at this point. Uh this looks at trends generally to help uh planners consider water as they're doing land planning. So across the state historically that hasn't been happening. often planners will do planning and not think about water or will just assume that the water will come and it just hasn't really been a consideration. So that's kind of the foundation of where this element and where this requirement came from. The the element is organized into several required topic areas including water resources, agriculture, drinking water and stakeholder coordination. So for water resources, we were asked to look at the effect of permitted development on uh water demand and infrastructure. So that's asking for a water budget. We'll talk about that in a second. We were asked to look at effects on the Great Salt Lake and the regional conservation goals. So when we talk about a water budget, we're comparing how much water is available and how much is being used and then how that would change as the county grows. Ideally, the state really wanted to see a water budget for all uses in the entire county for municipalities and everything. Um, that was a little bit outside of the scope of of what could be done with this first year that this is being put into the element. And so, the legislative requirement is just to look at the uninorporated parts of

the county. um because or that it's actually for the the public water systems in the unincorporated areas, but there's relative relatively few public water systems in the county. So, we looked at all of them, whether unincorporated or incorporated, and a couple of them. So, city of Tilla and Grantsville City each have to do their own element as well. They're large enough that they are doing the same exercise. Uh so we approached the water budget by looking at the difference between supply and demand and then looking at water use for different land use types. So on the chart here you can see this is within the boundaries of all the public water systems in the county. The top line in blue is population and the bottom line is red in red is retail connections and you can see that some growth is happening. And then on the next chart also within the public water systems again we have supply on the top line demand on the bottom line generally that's increasing as well mostly due to population increasing. You can see that there's some high water demand years in 2020 and 2024. Those were pretty dry years and some high water requirements. Um other than those outliers, the general trend is fairly flat or decreasing. it uh per when we look at it per capita or per acre and we will we'll look at that a little bit in a minute as well. Uh we relied heavily on GIS data for this analysis from the county and the state. This is land use types particularly we were focusing on urban and agricultural throughout the county. And then the next figure here we zoom in to the municipalities on the south shores of the lake and this area here. You can see the land uses there. And then as you know onethird of the area of the county is military use that is not included in the water element but we

encourage the county to continue to coordinate with military planners as as needed. Uh this next slide shows relative water uses again in the boundaries of those public water systems for urban and agricultural. uh the agriculture was calculated based on GIS data. So the the key takeaway here is the relative amounts not the exact numbers but the point is agricultural use is still a very high use in the county and should continue to remain a focus. When we look at the water use by land use type this is where I said it was fairly steady maybe even declining a little bit. Uh, we've picked 2017 and 2023 because we have good agricultural data for those years. And then 2024 was a high demand year. So, I put that on there as well. But for urban, you can see we were about one acre foot per acre of demand in those public water systems. And then for agricultural, we used the GIS data again that told us what type of crops were being farmed and we looked at published values for how much water those should require. So that was not based on reported usage for the agriculture. That one was calculated and that was a closer to two acre feet to 2 and a half acre feet per irrigated acre. So takeaways here is that the urban usage is staying fairly steady other than those high spikes that happen occasionally. And if agricultural land was to convert to urban, the overall water demand would generally decrease. However, with urban development, you need to have springs or groundwater or treated surface water for that indoor water need. Uh for agricultural and outdoor watering, you can have different quality water that's not treated and so they're not quite the same. Uh conservation strategies will help sustain the supply that you do

have. And as we looked at, agricultural water use will remain a major driver of water use in the county. And if needed, efficiency improvements and crop selection strategies can help reduce that uh the amount of water for agriculture. Uh when we I talked about how the urban use is fairly steady or declining. This graph kind of illustrates that. This is water use per capita. Uh this element required us to look at regional conservation goals. So the state has done a big study and set goals for the whole state. Tilla is part of the Salt Lake region. And so those goals for 2030 and 2040 are shown on there in the orange and green lines, 187 gallons and 178 gallons per capita per day. And the blue dots is all of the public water systems in the county. And so that trend is showing that the public water systems are on track. They're well on the way to meeting that goal. and continuing to prioritize conservation will help ensure that that that goal is met for the region. Um, as far as what the county can do, the county doesn't have a lot of control over water usage. So, there are a few things the county could do. uh particularly in the areas that the county manages such as at your sites, buildings, any facilities that you run, you could consider reducing un unused lawn or turf in areas where it's not being used. Uh switch out irrigation systems for more efficient ones, control any evaporation that shouldn't be happening, and you could potentially consider a sightspecific landscaping ordinance or a water efficient landscaping ordinance. the state is encouraging those and so that's something that the county could consider as well. Um at this point with just this just being the water element, the

ordinance is not part of that. These are just ideas the county could look into. Uh for the agriculture section of the report, we talked a little bit about the volume of agriculture or the volume of water agriculture uses, but it was important to the state that we focus on agricultural preservation as well and protecting irrigation delivery systems. Uh this is a figure of agricultural protection areas in the county and the state is encouraging the county to continue working with owners that want to preserve their land. And there's uh conservation easement areas as well shown here. You have one out in the northwest part of the county. We also included mapping for any irrigation companies that was available. And the way that those facilities are protected that the county has influence over is during development process your planners require those applicants to work with the canal companies to ensure their facilities are protected. So I think the county is doing well at that. Uh finally in the drinking water section of the report the we there it was required to list out the source and storage capacity of all the public drinking water systems. So that's shown in the document and it was required to consider the benefits of regionalization. So when we're talking about regionalization in in this element that we've prepared we are just talking about emergency interconnections. We uh we had sent the draft out and we got some feedback from Ochre Mountain Water Company that they have an interconnection with Stansbury Park and that was very beneficial when Stansbury was able to supply some water to Ochre Mountain during a time that Ochre Mountain needed it and then Ochre Mountain was able to transfer water back later in the year and do an exchange. And so the element recommends that the public water systems encourage or

consider interconnections. So again, the county doesn't really control that, but it's something that you can encourage the public water systems to do. And in the element document, we also list some regional water and sewer planning studies that have been done in the past. And sewer is not explicitly part of this, but those sewer studies do have some good information about future projections that that could be used. Uh for coordination, the state required that we coord coordinate with public water systems serving unincorporated areas of the county, but again there are not that many in Tilla. So we sent the element to all of them that we had contact information for and all the canal and irrigation companies that we had information for. And we do continue to welcome comments on this. Uh those can be sent to the county community development department or to my email address is here on the screen. Um any questions?

I have two. Okay. Um in the very beginning of the presentation you mentioned two cities but there's more than two. You included all of them. You just were commenting on two of them. Is that correct? Um, so this the state is requiring cities of the fourth class or larger to do their own water element just like the county all the counties in the state have to do one and then cities of the fourth class or larger have to do one and so Grantsville and Tilla City have done their own. I see. Okay. My other question is do you include private wells in this assessment? Not at all.

No, this No, this is just looking at the data for public water systems. I think the state would love to see something like that done, but for this this is the first year that this has been a requirement and so they may I don't know if they'll increase requirements in the future. That's really where they'd like to go is to look at every bit of water that's being used in the county and see how much is there, how much can the county grow, what's reasonable.

Is is there any kind of I guess there's some kind of accounting somewhere on all the wells that are private wells in the county. There's there are some groundwater studies that have been done that we looked back on. And so I think those and the groundwater models that are used in those studies account for those in some way. They don't like the the public water systems report their usage to the state every year. And so there's not a database like that for the private wells, but there have been studies done in the past, especially on the the Tilla Valley basin that have looked at the overall amount of water used. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? Um Katie, when you talked about the regional goals and stuff and the projections for 2030 to 2040, um was there an overlay maybe of the projected um population increase? Like how does this match up?

Um we don't I don't have an overlay of that. It is per capita. So, this goal is per person and so it would still be the same goal as the population increases. Um, but your your water supply, I guess that's that's where where we're not there yet, but where maybe you can go in the future is to do those kind of projections to see what the projected population is in the future and can the current amount of water you have sustain that or not.

Okay, thank you. Um, any other questions from the commissioners? Seeing none, I open public hearing at this time. If you would like to address this issue, please come to the podium and state your name. I don't see the clipboard. So, the name will work for records today. It's all yours.

Thank you. My name's Leland Hogan. Uh I live in Rush Valley uh out by South Rim and um excuse me. So we were we were invited three different ways to be to this meeting. Once through our irrigation of our farm, once through Hickman Creek Irrigation, which an irrigation company we've had for long, long long, long long time. And that doesn't provide any water to us. Nothing comes down out of Hickman Creek on the surface. It all comes underneath the ground. And for South Rim water system, um the division or the state engineers office is where we go to get our water rights and that's who we have to work with. And I appreciate the concern that you as a planning commission have always had about water being available for uh increase in population for growth and uh been before you a number of times talking about those kind of things and you've always showed great interest and have done I think a good job in making sure that water was going to be available for people that homes were being built. for that land was being subdivided for. Um the division of drinking water is someone that we have to deal with constantly with uh the drinking water system. Uh and all the cities and all of any any uh water system that is really over about 500 people deals directly with them on a on a monthly basis. if they're under that, they deal with them on a yearly basis. Uh, and I think I've got

that division correct. Um, and they do a great job in making sure that water is available as well. They're, uh, talking with you constantly about those things. Um the state engineers office annually sends out to the uh any water company that's over about 500 people a request for the amount of water that was utilized and where it was utilized during the entire year. and they want it by month. And uh I know we provide those records and I know that Tula City, Stanbury Park, uh Grantsville and other water companies that are within the county provide those records. Uh so those numbers are available if you if you want to see them uh through the division through the state engineers office and then they forward those to the division of drinking water is my understanding from them. But um I just wanted to be here to tell you that we received all the communication that we were to receive. I've read all this material and uh we appreciate your concern about water and as we have watched things grow in our area, we have seen people being more concerned about water. Uh and it's because of pricing usually that they get more concerned. If it costs them more, then they wonder why and want to see if they can lower that cost. and going to uh non-errigated, not having lawns, going to zeroscape or desertscape, if they want to call it that. Uh that type of uh uh beautifification around their homes,

they do that. And we've seen in a number of instances where water usage has gone down. Uh the thing that affects it the most as we've watched water and as we watched our irrigation water on our farm is as she had those charts up there. You can see the dry years. It really spikes. You start reusing water earlier and you use water later. And when we have a wet year, water usage really drops off. Um anyway, I thank I thank you for your interest and for everything you're doing to protect the county and to protect those citizens who live within the county. So, thank you. Anyone online? Okay, seeing no one coming forward, I close the public hearing. Any other questions, comments, concerns?

Um, I just have a actually it's a correction on the on the the document we have here. See if I can see what page it was on. It's on page 28. One of the names is incorrect. It's got to be because he's moved. It's okay. Doesn't matter. Nope. I know which one you're going to point out. It's for Lincoln Culinary and it doesn't matter. This is probably last year's data and to start the water year. That was the gentleman. So, okay. The only thing just one error. Yep. There's more, but that doesn't matter.

No doubt that. Okay. At this time, I make the recommendation I move that we make a favorable recommendation to the TW County Council to adopt uh I want to get sorry get the wording right. uh to adopt into the general plan the water element um as written. Can I have a second?

Second. Have a a motion and a second. We will do a roll call on this. Commissioner Dao, how do you vote? Commissioner Stats, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Beckra, yes. and Commissioner Bo Scott, I vote. Um, yes. So, this will be a favorable recommendation for adaptation by the the county council. I thank you, Katie, for your work. Very good. Thank you. Um, seeing no other business, I move that we adjourn. Am I missing something? Everyone's looking at me.

Yeah. I make a motion. Yeah. I move we adjourn. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. It's like I've done it before. Yes. Thanks, Mike. Thank you, Michael. Okay, perfect. Council doesn't